India NEWS

For international investors seeking a piece of India's renewables boom -- and the bankers who sit across the table with them -- all roads go through the country's domestic energy players. That's the message from Bank of America Corp.'s Gaurav Singhal, who leads the busiest team in India's green energy M&A sector in the past 12 months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The biggest of the deals saw the U.S. bank advising SoftBank Group Corp.

Gujarat is making rapid strides into the renewable energy (RE) sector with a slew of mega green energy projects. These projects relate not just to electricity generation but also to equipment manufacturing. Backed by policy initiatives and strong investor support, Gujarat’s renewable power generation capacity is expected to jump to 38,466MW by 2025 and 61,466MW by 2030, according to the state government’s estimates.

Chiranjeev Saluja is scaling up. In April 2021, when CarbonCopy spoke to him, installed capacity at his solar module and cell manufacturing company, Telangana-based Premier Energies, stood at 500 MW. That was set to change. “We are opening a new unit producing modules worth 750 MW next month,” said the firm’s founder and managing director. “With that, our scale will go up to 1.25 GW in modules and 500 MW in cells.”

The lockdown in India led to hundreds of thousands of workers in cities returning to their hometowns. With most jobs concentrated in urban regions, their exodus highlighted the precarious employment situation for millions in rural India. Even before the pandemic, jobs were a challenge. In 2019, the unemployment rate in India was the highest in 47 years.

The agreement was signed between the Government of Sri Lanka and the Export-Import Bank of India.A press statement from the Indian High Commission in Colombo said, ‘India has become the first country to partner with Sri Lanka in fulfilling the vision of the President of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, to ensure that 70% of Sri Lanka’s national power requirements are fulfilled by renewable energy sources by 2030,”

The world is looking for alternate sources of energy because our non-renewable energy deposits are limited and depleting fast. Therefore, companies like the Sunbuy Renewables Private Limited, which is one of the biggest EPC firms in Western India, is what the future needs. Sunbuy, currently working in the B2B segment, has its own management tools for processing Solar Power Plant assets and presently, it has 50MW of projects in hand.

With the rapid increase in India’s solar energy capacity addition, there is a considerable amount of solar photovoltaic (PV) waste that is already being generated and is expected to grow in the coming decades, according to industry analysts. A preliminary analysis by the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) estimated 1,359 tonnes of waste by the end of financial year 2020-21 from the current 40 gigawatt (GW) solar capacity.

ReNew Power, an Indian renewable energy pure-play, is expected to get listed on Nasdaq through the back door with the help of SPAC RMG Acquisition Corp II (NASDAQ:RMGB) at the beginning of the third quarter of 2021. This raises the question if ReNew is just another SPAC that will disappoint investor expectations? In my analysis I underpin the resilience of the company's business model and I argue that its valuation is relatively cheap at the current price.

India is targeting about 450 gigawatts of installed renewable energy capacity by 2030 and, of that, a lion’s share – 280 GW (over 60%) – would come from solar. For the next 10 years, around 25 GW of solar energy capacity is needed to be installed every year, to ensure the sun continues to shine over the country’s sunrise sector.

AGEL has signed definitive agreements for 100% acquisition of SB Energy Holdings Limited ("SB Energy India") . Projects are contracted to sell power under 25 years PPAs with sovereign rated counterparties. The transaction is for a fully completed enterprise valuation of approximately USD 3.5 billion (~Rs. 26,000 Cr.)This transformational acquisition will enable AGEL to reach renewable portfolio of 25 GW four years ahead of the target.

Iran’s Petropars Ltd. will be awarded a $1.78 billion contract by the National Iranian Oil Co. to develop the giant Farzad-B gas field that was previously intended to be tapped by a group of Indian companies. Petropars will produce 28 million cubic meters of gas a day from the offshore deposit within five years, according to the agreement, the Iranian oil ministry’s official Shana news service reported, with the contract to be signed on Monday. An Indian consortium led by ONGC Videsh Ltd. was engaged in talks with Iran to develop the field but disagreements over investment volume and gas prices delayed progress and negotiations stalled completely after the U.S. reimposed sanctions on Iran in 2018.

Cairn Oil & Gas on Wednesday said it has commenced oil production from NA #01 facility in Aishwariya Barmer Hills in Rajasthan. “The project is a first in Cairn’s tight oil portfolio with a growth potential to contribute 20 percent to the company’s vision production,” the company said in a statement. It is the largest horizontal well with a multi-frac development campaign of 37 wells in the Indian subcontinent which is the key enabler to unlock tight oil.

The second Covid-19 surge is wreaking havoc in India, with cases surpassing six figures daily. Although India has not declared a nationwide lockdown, several states where the cases have peaked substantially are resorting to preventive measures, including lockdowns. Reports suggest that some migrant workers across the country may be making their way home to avoid the logistical nightmare a lockdown may bring. However, it is not as widespread compared to last year’s exodus and limited to specific parts of the country.

India's flagship oil and gas producer ONGC on Wednesday said it is seeking foreign partners for yet-to-be-developed fields in lesser prospective areas but is shackled by uneconomic gas prices and tax structure. ONGC is also looking into strategic relationships and close alliances with key international players through (overseas arm) ONGC Videsh," the company said in a statement.

The Joint Technical Committee of OPEC+ is concerned about the growing case numbers in India, Japan, and Brazil, Reuters sources said on Monday. The Joint Technical Committee, or JTC, is responsible for assessing oil market fundaments. It is also tasked with monitoring which member countries are complying with the production cut quotas and which are not. The JTC is not changing its oil demand outlook at this time, but the group is keeping an eye on surging coronavirus cases in some substantial oil importers.

TOKYO: Oil prices fell on Monday amid mounting concerns that surging caseloads of coronavirus infections in India and other countries will lead to stronger measures and hit economic activity, along with demand for commodities such as crude.Brent crude was down 43 cents, or 0.6%, at $66.34 a barrel by 0139 GMT, after rising 6% last week. U.S. oil was down 42 cents, or 0.7%, at $62.71 a barrel, having gained 6.4% last week.

The Environment Minister says the country contributions towards global emissions are as low as 7%. Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar on Sunday said India is increasingly leveraging renewable energy to fuel its growing power consumption as it scales programmes like Aatmanirbhar Bharat. India has only 3% contribution in the historical emissions and that the U.S., Europe and other regions have contributed more to harmful emissions over the last 150 years.

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) on Monday invited bids for the sale of initial 2 million standard cubic meters per day of gas from its KG basin fields at a minimum price of USD 6.6 per mmBtu.Initially, 2 million standard cubic metres per day of gas has been offered for sale through an e-auction. A senior ONGC official said the ceiling price is expected to rise to USD 5.5-5.6 at the next revision due on October 1.